


It's Not Impossible If the Grail Is Involved

by Joel7th



Series: You are my sunshine, my only sunshine [6]
Category: Fate/Apocrypha, Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Fluff, Genderbending, Humor, M/M, Parody
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-03-04 07:37:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13359585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joel7th/pseuds/Joel7th
Summary: “Key words: ‘you think’, Archer. Nausea isn’t equivalence of morning sickness.”Sequel to Sharing Warmth, A Drunken Mishap and All the Valentine’s Chocolate Combined. Sort of.





	1. Chapter 1

“Please, Arjuna,” Miria pled, her tone giving a teary hint as she had both of her arms around the Archer’s torso and was practically clinging to him like a koala to her dearest tree. “I know how you feel but please, please control your thunderous temper.”

“Let go off me, Miria,” Arjuna seethed but he didn’t make any move to shake her off, clearly having forgotten how to dematerialize. Were this clingy redhead someone else, they would have been already pulverized by his arrows. But this was Miria, his own Master, and he couldn’t be harsh to her no matter how wrathful he was; as a matter of fact, he had never raised his voice at her, who bore an uncanny resemblance to his late mother, until now. “You don’t know how I feel and neither can you read my mind so stop staying such nonsense.”

“Of course I do,” Miria retorted stubbornly. “You’re furious and you want to destroy something, or someone. I felt the same when I found out Dorian knocked up my Freya.”

“Who is Freya?”

“My beautiful Persian cat, and Dorian wasn’t even a pedigree cat.”

“…”

A miniature eruption.

“Let go off me or I swear—”

“You will what?”

At her accusing tone, Arjuna went speechless. He made a mistake of looking into her eyes and was dealt a blow so fatal for a second he thought he might be delivered straight to the Throne of Heroes. Watery puppy eyes were a deadly combo, especially when they were on the face that reminded him so much of Kunti. The moment he materialized in the Chaldean summoning circle and saw how his Master looked like, he immediately knew that Fate had pulled a prank on him. It was pretty obvious that Miria was aware of the effect she had on the Archer, and had grown accustomed to using it to have him wrapped around her little finger. For the most part, Arjuna had no problem with it; he was even indulging her. After all, Miria, despite her vices, was a decent human being and never once had she crossed the line.

Now that she sensed her usual trick had worked on her Servant, Miria shifted to a placating tone. “You’re angry and you want to destroy Rhys’s Saber just like last time because you care about your brother—“

“I do not!!!”

“Despite how many times you swear you do not, “ Miria continued without missing a beat. “That’s so typical of a tsundere.”

“I have no idea what the hell that means but I repeat: I. do. not. care.”

“Whatever you said. But please remind yourself the number one rule here is under no circumstance is a Servant allowed to kill another Servant. Now before you say you couldn’t care less about rules and such, I have to tell you that there’s small printing under that rule saying Masters are obliged to use a Command Spell, or a whole batch, to stop their Servants. And even if that proves to be useless, the upper folks will go to the extreme and send the Servants back to the Throne of Heroes.”

She took a short pause to regain her breath before continuing, “And we had a deal, didn’t we? That I would never use a Command Spell on you except to boost your fighting prowess in combat.”

“This time and that time are different,” Arjuna protested, although he sounded a little cooled down. “Much as I hate to admit it, that time was a misunderstanding.”

Miria’s eyebrows arched. “But this time could be an understanding, too, right Jing Ke?”

At the mention of her name, the Assassin reluctantly made her presence known from the corner she had been standing since she fetched Miria, observing (or judging, depends on your perspective) her Master and her ‘colleague’ Servant with the silence unique to her class. “Why asking me, Master?” she asked, her expressionless countenance showing a rare helplessness. Perhaps what she truly wanted to ask was “Why pulling me into this? My duty was to fetch you when Archer started babbling murder and it was done.”

“Why?” Miria echoed. “Because you’re included in the elite circle known as Chaldea Info Center, along with Foxy, Kiyohime and a couple others. And if they aren’t the Servants who know everything about Siegfried and Karna, nobody else is.”

Feeling the gravity of Arjuna’s gaze on her, Jing Ke heaved a mental sigh. “Like I said a dozen times before in this morning, those are merely rumors. Not even Berserker or Caster can be one hundred percent certain, and she’s a Caster. Surely she knows more about this matter than you and me combined.”

“I saw it with my own eyes,” said Arjuna, grinding his teeth. “Those rumors turn out to be true as far as I’m concerned.”

As he was speaking, the Archer subconsciously averted his gaze from Jing Ke. This gesture wasn’t lost on Miria’s keen eyes.

“Wait a minute, I don’t follow. What sort of rumors did I miss?”

It was Jing Ke’s turn to avoid making eye contact with her Master. “What you saw were symptoms, not the definite diagnosis. Davinci still has to do some tests.”

“I think I’ve lived long enough to be able to tell what those symptoms are, Assassin.”

“Key words: ‘you think’, Archer. Nausea isn’t equivalence of morning sickness.”

Miria almost bit her tongue.

“What?!”

With the data input, her mind ran a lightning-quick deduction and came to a conclusion. “It’s impossible. Karna’s male, not to mention a male Servant.”

Arjuna ground his teeth.

“That’s precisely the point, Master,” Jing Ke said, crossing her arms. “We’re Servants and we’re able to physically stand here thanks to the Grail. It’s not an exaggeration to say the Grail has absolute control over our existence. It’s not impossible if the Grail is involved.”

Miria sent the renowned Chinese Assassin a reprimanding look that said “Not helping”.

“Thanks for a brief review of Master 101, Jing Ke, but what does it have anything to do with Karna and these rumors?”

“Have you forgotten the incident a couple weeks ago?” Arjuna suddenly asked.

“What incident are you—Oh, you mean  _that_  incident?”

Jing Ke and Arjuna nodded in unison.

Miria signed, her eyebrows knitted. “Now that you mention it…”

_To be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

A couple weeks ago

…

It happened all too fast.

“Balmung!” Siegfried bellowed, unleashing the fury of his Noble Phantasm straight at his target. Light from the sword of twilight engulfed the giant fleshy blob with more bulging eyes and slimy tentacles than he could count. To fuel the nightmare, on its bluish flesh were numerous breathing pores, which caused a trypophobic person – their Master – to go pale at the sight; even the stoic Karna appeared to be gritting his teeth to not grimace in disgust. Such an absolutely repulsing life form, Siegfried thought, yet its recovery prowess was rather formidable: no matter how deep his slashes were, it only took the creature a couple seconds to close the wounds. At this rate, the battle would drag out unnecessarily, and they definitely didn’t have a whole day. So Siegfried decided it was worth using Balmung to wipe it out in a single, powerful strike. The creature made wheezing noises from its pores as it writhed violently in agony, but perhaps even its bean-sized brain could comprehend that its fate of being cleansed from the earth was sealed, and there was nothing it could do but struggle in vain for a short while.

Blinding light swallowed everything in sight for a while, and when it dimmed, the scene was clear, with the sky cerulean and the clouds puffy and white. The air was cloyed with the pungent odor of charred flesh but even that was soon dispersed by the freshly smelled breezes. The perfect complement to a well-earned victory against the wicked and evil, Siegfried mused as he allowed himself a brief moment to bathe in it. Time seemed to stand still as if time itself had fallen in love with the sweet serenity and wished to preserve its fragile beauty as long as possible.

“Karna, look out!”

… Or until their Master’s shout shattered the short-lived peaceful atmosphere. Hyper-alarmed, Siegfried swept his entire body around just in time to see the slug-like parasites were plunging themselves towards Karna with incredible speed; the orifices that acted as their mouths were wide open, revealing countless tiny hooks for teeth. With their host eradicated, their survival instincts had prompted them to seek the nearest new source of energy to leech and what were Servants if not undiluted mana put into human shape, making them the perfect host.

The Lancer glared coldly at those parasites, his features set and calm. Gracefully he leapt into the air to dodge the few fastest parasites and simultaneously set them ablaze with a snap of his hand, reducing them to ash to scatter in the air. Perhaps having decided these scums weren’t worth consuming their Master’s mana for his mana burst, he spun his spear, utilizing the speed and strength of his predominant arm to pressurize the air into razor-sharp blades that pulled the unburnt creatures in and rendered them into minced meat. It was a nasty but efficient move – the thought flashed through Siegfried’s mind as he was transfixed by the momentum of Karna’s golden spear – which possessed a ruthless elegance unique to a master of arms. This was Karna, beautiful and gorgeous and godly in his mercilessness towards those he deemed unworthy of his mighty father’s light.

Still, all the elegance and beauty of Karna’s exquisite technique seemed ephemeral and insignificant once his D-rank luck played its evil hand; in this world, sometimes luck was the only thing that mattered. As he was taking his landing after cleansing each and every filthy parasite off the earth, a stroke of absent-mindlessness plagued him just for a second, yet that fleeting moment was all what needed for his bad luck to slip into the picture: temporarily forgetting that the ground was scattered with the slimy remains of the creature slain by Siegfried and thus extremely slippery, he stepped on a squishy, writhing bit which might have been the creature’s tentacle, and as a tragic result, he stumbled and fell down… into a pool conveniently situated just behind him, shattering the glass-still surface with a big splash.

Between a top-notch Servant cursed with deviantly bad luck and an insidious pool, which would win? Clearly it was the pool.

Why?

Because being Lancer was suffering, even when falling a small body of water was hardly a threat.

Was it?

“Karna!” shouted Siegfried and their Master in unison, both watching the accident happen and being helpless in doing anything to stop it.

Siegfried’s mind processed the turn of events with the speed of light and arrived at a valiant resolution. Still, when he was half a second away from launching himself into the water to fish Karna out, a loud gasp cut through the tension in the air like a hot knife and a figure emerged from the water.

“Kar—”

The word died on Siegfried’s tongue as his eyes behold the sight before him. His mind experiencing a short circuit, he stared, wide-eyes, at the water-dripping figure that was supposed to be Karna. There was that key word: supposed. Surely this Servant looked exactly like the Lancer Siegfried had come to love and adore (it’d be serious trouble if they didn’t); and yet, there were some particular features that just screamed…off, to put it mildly. A more accurate description should be inexplicable, impossible, bizarre and most of all, terrifying. No, Karna hadn’t grown an extra head or arm, or sprout a few tentacles like the monster they’d just defeated; nonetheless, his, let’s say,  _additional_  attributes weren’t any less worrying. Most notable was his chest, which had acquired considerable swellness, and, considering his usual skin-fitting attire, his supple, snow-pale flesh had been exposed in a manner bordering on the kind of obscenity that made men vulnerable to sin. And before being a Dragon Slayer, a Heroic Spirit and a Servant, Siegfried was a man in every sense, so he could be justifyingly excused for having his eyes magnetized to the cleavage (plus the cherry blossom nubs peeking out from his outfit, dear  _Gott_ ) and momentarily forgetting how wrong it was on Karna’s male body.

A high-pitched scream equipped with the power of a minor Noble Phantasm (except that it wasn’t) pierced through the cerulean sky and quaked the earth. The intuition of a seasoned warrior had alerted Siegfried and Karna just in time to cover their ears but even when they were doing so, their eardrums were still vibrating with the force of the scream thanks to their close distance with the source – their young Master.

If only such power could be transformed into monster-killing energy, the two Servants ubiquitously thought.

“Wh-What the hell is happening?” the young Master stammered, his voice still not recovering from the scream. “Why a-are you-you like this, Karna?”

The Master was pointing a finger at Karna’s chest, and then realizing that his gesture was extremely rude, he put his hand down, awkwardly jamming it into his pants pocket. He was shaking pretty hard but the cause – be it shock or appall – was unclear. Probably both. Clearly they hadn’t covered the steps of action when your Servant was magically turned into the opposite sex in Master 101.

Karna’s eyes widened as though he had registered neither what the ruckus was about nor what had happened to him. His gaze traveled down his body and for a second, he thought his eyes might have bulged out of his head. Throughout his life, there had been few things which could startle him, and one could safely said Heroic Spirit Karna had ascended to the highest state of Zen. But for better or worse, life was always full of surprises and all the knowledge he had acquired in his two lives wasn’t enough to allow him a feeblest grasp of comprehension. And thus he was standing here, in the pool, with the water reaching his elbows, speechless and examining the drastic physical alterations to his body with a sense of confusion mixed with helpless awe.

Had he unknowingly offended a god and thus punished? What kind of god would pass such a peculiar divine punishment?

Being a gentleman first and foremost, Siegfried managed to overcome his state of shock to unclasp his cloak of invisibility and drape it over Karna’s shoulders and preserve his partner’s modesty. The contact snapped Karna out of his trance and he quickly got out of the pool.

Once he was out, Siegfried and the Master had the chance to examine the changes more thoroughly, and boy didn’t they hit them hard. There were the big changes such as his chest, once flat and manly but now had acquired the size of an average female; or the slimness of his waist accentuated by the curves of his hips, visible to the naked eyes thanks to his garment. And then there were the nuances that could only be spotted out with more attention. His feline eyes had gotten a tad bigger, his lips fuller and his jaw line softer. His spiky hair had gotten wet and was sticking to his rounder face, giving him an even more feminine look. Kiyohime had once jokingly remarked that Karna would make a woman as fine as a man and seeing him like this, she wasn’t wrong.

Uhm, if his features all screamed feminine, what about his body, under his garment to be specific?

“Siegfried, your nose is bleeding,” said Karna in worrying tone – his voice, too, had gotten higher despite his conscious attempt to keep it low. “You too, Master.”

That was very Karna – to express concern over others’ wellbeing even when the one in the direst situation was himself.

Siegfried and the Master exchanged a brief look and both turned to the side and discreetly wiped the blood off.

“What happened to Karna?”

“What happened to me?”

Siegfried and Karna both said in unison.

“You two stay calm,” their Master replied, wiping the sweats off his forehead with the same handkerchief he had used for his nose. “Stay very calm. There’s gotta be some way to-to fix it. I just have to contact Davinci and-and report the situation first and in the meantime, be calm and-and don’t freak out. I’m sure this condition is only temporary and you’ll turn back to normal in no time.”

Did their Master sound calm? Siegfried and Karna seriously doubted so.

_To be continued_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have already noticed, this is inspired by ½ Ranma.


	3. Chapter 3

The small contact device, whose form resembled a popular Japanese toy from the previous century, bleated like a sheep choking on hair balls. Rhys frowned deeply and shook it a few times while muttering some soft-core profanity; he still had a face to keep in front of his Servants.

“Is it broken, Master?” Siegfried asked with genuine concern. They’d be in some serious trouble if it was.

“I hope not, Siegfried. The darn thing is probably just showing its humor is all. Since I was careless and broke my device on last mission, I had to do with this junk. Ah, there it goes.”

The device beeped and flashed before a monotonous hologram was conjured. The image was grainy and shaky like something produced by a senile camera, and the person who answered their contact was...

“Huh? Where’s Davinci?” the Master blurted, surprised and kind of disappointed not to see the familiar and reassuring visage of Chaldea’s head of problem-solving center.

The image flickered as though reflecting the Servant’s annoyance on the other end. “You dare question my capability to deal with your problems, mongrel?” Gilgamesh barked, crossing his arms in a haughty pose. His sharp red eyes peered into what assumed to be the screen in Davinci’s communication office.

“No, no, no, I dare not, Your Majesty. It’s just... I didn’t expect to witness your presence here,” the Master placated. “May I ask for your forgiveness?”

“Fine, you have my forgiveness since I’m in a fair mood, mongrel. Davinci’s on a coffee break so I’m temporarily taking over to while away the time. What’s taking so long to clear this Singularity? Time is treasure, did you not know?”

“Er... we encountered an unexpected problem while working to fix this Singularity.”

Gilgamesh’s hologram arched a fine eyebrow. “An unexpected problem? How serious?”

“Mildly serious, Your Majesty.” Before the Caster reprimanded him for being vague, he quickly elaborated, “It’s not a life-threatening matter per se, but it’s bizarre and perplexing and downright inexplicable. I don’t think something like that has ever occurred before in Chaldea records.”

“You’re wasting my time, mongrel. Get to the point.”

 _Who just said he wanted to while away the time?_ “I apologize, Your Majestic. It’s probably best if you see it with your own eyes.”

Rhys held up the device for Gilgamesh to have a view of Karna, whose modesty was intact thanks to Siegfried’s cloak. Unfortunately said cloak also served as a cover to the problem – that Karna had been transformed into a female. The poor visual quality of the device certainly didn’t help much other than obscuring Karna’s newly gained feminine features.

Mistaken his frown for deep, troubled thoughts concerning the complexity and severity of the issue, Rhys gingerly asked, “May I be allowed to inquire about the problem, my king?”

He certainly didn’t expect a question back.

“What’s the problem?”

Eh?

“Are you not seeing it, my King?”

Gilgamesh’s slit eyes narrowed in a dangerous glare. “You dare jest me, mongrel?”

A huge bead of sweats raced down Rhys’s forehead to his chin. “I—I dare not, my king,” he stammered, glancing at Karna and Siegfried. “Karna, would you mind taking it off so His Majesty can see?”

Siegfried was having a troubled expression on his face but he kept his lips tightly sealed as he watched Karna taking off the cloak with all the stoicism a Heroic Spirit could muster when having to reveal his body. Still, from the look of it, Siegfried seemed to be much more bothered by this act than Karna himself.

Gilgamesh squinted his eyes – probably due to the image quality – before his eyes widened to their utmost capability for the first time in centuries. “What on earth—?”

As expected, Rhys thought to himself. “Please allow me to explain, Your Majesty,” he said. “Things can be a little... complicated.”

_After a while_

“And that’s basically what happened,” Rhys finished the sentence. He expected the King of Heroes to show some shock (maybe just a little) or disbelief. He even expected the king to chastise him for telling a distasteful joke (it did sound like one). Instead, what he got was a pensive look of a wise king and magic user possessing knowledge from the age of gods. Maybe this issue was much, much more serious than he had estimated, and it demanded ancient wisdom to properly deal with it.

Rhys was thinking powerful, elaborate rituals which might or might not involve pentagrams drawn in blood or human sacrifice when Gilgamesh’s voice breached the silence. “Karna fell into one of the pools there, didn’t he?”

Unsure if the King of Heroes was asking a genuine question or a rhetorical one, Rhys replied gingerly, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Have you checked other pools?”

Rhys glanced at Siegfried and Karna to check if his Servants understood Gilgamesh. Both shook their heads in perfect unison. Either it was something most couples could do without trying or they must have been practicing.

“I beg your pardon, my king, but I didn’t quite understand. We haven’t dared to touch the waters, any of them, should they prove to be perilous.”

Rhys heaved a mental sigh. It was always mentally challenging to speak to all three versions of the King of Uruk, which proved they were indeed the same soul at the core. The littlest Gilgamesh, although humble and sweet, was ever ready to pull a prank at his Master, which was fine unless it happened when Rhys just returned from a mission, bone-tired and neither physically nor mentally prepared for one. The middle Gilgamesh – the Masters liked to refer to him such amongst themselves – was so Gate-of-Babylon-happy that every Master, even his own, had to tiptoe around him lest them invoke his wrath and get pulverized. He had made it very clear when summoned that he wouldn’t mind having a change of Master if his current one turned out to be “unworthy” or “a disappointment”. _Gulp_. As strong as the King of Heroes was, Rhys considered himself lucky enough to _not_ have gotten him. Why couldn’t every top-tier Heroic Spirit be as kind and easygoing as Siegfried and Karna? The elder Gilgamesh was the easiest one to deal with so far; so long as you showed him utmost respect and gave him treatment befitted a monarch, he would regard you a loyal subject and occasionally grant you some favors. Nevertheless, the amount of speech formality required was nerve-wrenching to someone who had never come in contact with the blue bloods before. Rhys should totally recommended it be added to the next Master 101 courses.

“A wise decision. Well thinking, mongrel,” Gilgamesh commented. “Coming in contact with the unknown may very well produce unpleasant results.”

Rhys felt a bud of pride blooming in his heart; to be complimented by the great King of Heroes was a quaint occasion, perhaps once in a lifetime, so the young Magus made sure he would—

“However, squash that caution away...”

How brutal. Rhys imagined he could hear the sound of his heart shattering.

Standing beside him, both Siegfried and Karna cast a sympathetic glance at their Master.

Either he didn’t realize or he wouldn’t be bothered with such trivial, Gilgamesh continued, “... because you need to examine those pools to determine what exactly each one could do, whether they all had the same effect. Understood?”

Frankly he didn’t. “But Your Majesty, how could we do that without endangering ourselves?”

It would be disastrous if either Siegfried or himself had suffered the same condition as Karna. _Sorry buddy, it’s best you be alone in this._

The image flickered as though affected by Gilgamesh’s waving his hand in a dismissal gesture. “That you have to figure out yourself. Even though a mongrel, you are still a Master of Chaldea, who is holding a contract with several Heroic Spirits. Fail and you should know the punishment for disappointing the king.”

 _Such motivational words._ Rhys swallowed up his coming sighs. “Yes, Your Majesty. Please allow me one more question before this contact device runs out battery.”

“Speak.”

“What should we do if our examination of the pools yields no result? If we retrieve the Grail, this Singularity will be erased and so will these pools, then what about Karna’s condition? Will he have to remain in this... form for—”

The device beeped and Gilgamesh’s projection vanished like a puff of smoke from Genie’s lamp. The three of them stared wide-eyed at the blank space where the device lied without a care in the world.

 _Shit_.

_To be continued_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience and very encouraging comments. They really keep me going.


	4. Chapter 4

Rhys once had a dream that went like this: for some reason unknown, he was confined in a large room with two other people whose faces he had mostly forgotten. There was nothing else in that sterile-white room beside them three, no furniture, no window, no door, no clock. Certainly no bathroom but let’s leave it at that. Time stretched indefinitely, and they had no other things to do than staring at one another until Rhys could take it no more and screamed at the top of his lungs: “Hell is other people!!!”

Being a person who didn’t believe in dreams bearing any messages from the unconscious, Rhys quickly dismissed it as a result of eating a bit too much chocolate before bed. Never had he thought such absurd dream would manifest in reality.

It did.

At the moment, he was sitting across from two other people with nothing better to do than staring at them. The differences were those two weren’t strangers but rather two Servants contracted to him and although the three of them didn’t have much to converse in the past hour, Rhys didn’t strongly feel the urge to scream like he had done in his dream. Siegfried and Karna were easily two of the most pleasant Servants in Chaldea, and screaming at them was the last thing any Master with a sane mind would do. That wasn’t saying tension born from a sense of helplessness and being stuck in a place for an unknown period was not gradually building in the atmosphere and threatening to tip over at some point if they didn’t do anything about it.

But what could they do exactly?

One of his Servants had been met with an unfortunate turn of event and now the other Servant was trying to wordlessly soothe ‘her’ mute anxiety with little dedicate gestures. A light squeeze on the shoulder or lacing their fingers, such gestures occasionally got in the periphery of Rhys’s eyes even though he didn’t mean to be privy and tinged the heart of the twenty-six-year-old single Master. Rhys sighed inwardly, trying not to let it shown that he was just a little envious of his Servants. Of course he was happy for them in general; it was just normal reaction of a single person in witness of loving couples. How he wished to have someone to look at him the way Siegfried did his ‘sun’ (had accidentally eavesdropped on them), but no, the world needed to be saved and humanity restored before a man could find a girlfriend, or boyfriend – he wasn’t picky about genders.

But before he found his significant other, Rhys had to find a way to charge his communication device, which had died midway in his consultation with the King of Heroes. Being a thorough Master, he had prepared a portable charger just in case; however, that charger, which mainly converted solar energy into electricity, was most suitable for newer generations of communication device, designed strictly in accordance with the ‘living green’ motto. Unfortunately, his current device happened to be pretty outdated and thus incompatible with the charger. So, at the moment, Rhys was having a dead communication device and charger which couldn’t be used, and an escalating anxiety. They had yet to find and retrieve the Grail and Rhys knew the longer the Grail stayed in this Singularity, the bigger the ticking bomb it became before it blew all their butts up. He wondered if Karna’s peculiar condition had anything to do with the Grail’s presence; if that was the case, getting the Grail would be a sure-win solution. He just needed to consult with the trusted, informative and reliable Da Vinci first.

“Guys, I’m afraid we’ll have to camp here tonight,” Rhys said, gawking at the red and blue lines of his communication device with a mini screwdriver in his hand. “Meaning we’ll have to build a fire because the temperature may have a drastic drop. Siegfried, would you mind gathering some woods while I’m testing my luck and trying to alter this Stone-Age device so that it may adapt to modern technology? And probably catching a chicken or quail too while you’re at it?”

Siegfried and Karna exchanged a look before the Saber spoke, “Master, may I say something?”

Rhys frowned. “Didn’t I tell you to drop that unnecessary formality centuries ago? I don’t know if any of your previous Masters has done that but with me, you speak whatever you want, whenever you want. Got it?”

Rhys didn’t realize he was raising his voice a pitch higher than usual – probably due to the tension which had been building thus far, and he sounded like he was angry at his Servant. As a result, Siegfried was quick to do what he always did: apologizing. “Sumanai, Master. But I think we should heed the King of Heroes’ advice. I will be the one to test the waters.”

“No, no, no, no sir, Mister,” Rhys exclaimed, startling both of his Servants. “Gilgamesh can go plunge into those pools himself for all I care but you’re not doing it. I repeat, **we** are not doing it.”

Karna’s expression spelled relief. It appeared this was what they had been whispering to each other about.

“We don’t have other choices but to try, Master.”

“I admire your heroic self-sacrifice but not this time, Siegfried. Who knows what these waters could turn you into, a woman, a boar or a panda or all three combined, so no way Jose. I’m going to contact Da Vinci and we’ll work it out.”

Siegfried looked like he was about to protest but Karna tugged his forearm and he kept his lips tight, albeit not without a wee bit of resistance. The gesture didn’t go unseen in Rhys’s eyes. Now that’s how you tame a dragon, he thought with amusement.

“Yes, Master,” Siegfried said with a certain amount of resignation, bowing. “I’ll go and gather some woods.”

The silence soon came back after Siegfried’s leave. Karna was a man of few words, so he just stayed on his spot, legs crossed, hands on his knees and appeared to have entered a mediating state while sun rays spilled on his shoulders, polishing his armor to perfection and the winds teased his spiky-looking hair every now and then. Sitting there, he seemed to become one with nature and yet somehow still starkly stood out. His pose intrigued Rhys, who had heard about all the yoga stuff but had never tried it; however, not wishing to disturb his Servant’s meditation, he steered his attention to the red and blue lines that were testing his A grade with electronic devices back to his training days in Master 101.

“Ouch!”

A spark of electricity caused by touching the wrong line broke the comfortable silence between Master and Servant. It was by no means dangerous but it did alert Karna, who immediately snapped his eyes open and did a Godspeed scan of their surroundings for any potential threats. Finding none, he turned to his Master, “Are you alright?”

It took Rhys more than a second to realize Karna was speaking to him since his voice had been significantly altered – higher, softer and very feminine; only the coolness in his tongue remained unchanged. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Rhys said, “just got a minor electric shock, though. The problem’s I’m not getting anywhere with this. This thing’s too ancient to be brought out to light, let alone use. If only Tesla or Edison were here, well, not both of them at a time.”

“Sorry that I am of no help.”

Rhys sighed. Someone had been spending too much time with a certain Dragon Slayer and thus got contracted with his apology disease.

“Why are you apologizing when you’re not at fault? You were a great hero, not someone with a degree in electronics. Besides, I like going on missions with you two. Can’t ask for better teammates.”

“Master... thank you,” Karna muttered, a blush dusting his cheeks and neck, made all the more eye-catching given his marmoreal skin. His winter-blue eyes glistened.

Karna’s expression was just too much for Rhys’s weak heart, so he quickly changed the subject. “Come to think of it, we’ve Rayshifted to the time when this device was manufactured. If only we could find a conventional outlet then we’d be blessed.”

“Should we go explore the land to see if we could find a town or village?”

“When Siegfried returns we will discuss it, but for tonight, camping here is inevitable, as going around at night doesn’t look like a great idea.”

Karna nodded in agreement.

“Does it... pose any inconvenience?”

Karna slightly arched an eyebrow.

“I mean... all of these changes,” Rhys clarified.

“If it’s my fighting capability then I assure you, Master, I’m at my full strength and ready for battles.”

“Yeah, your stats remain the same but what concerns me is whether this state inconveniences you.”

As soon as the words passed his lips Rhys realized how redundant it was to ask such a question. If he were in Karna’s shoe, inconvenience was the least he could think of.

“It feels strange,” Karna said, “like this body is mine and I have full control of it yet at the same time, I feel as if I was walking in someone else’s skin.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“It may take a while for me to get used to it.”

“Don’t say it like you’re gonna be like this forever,” Rhys chastised, not harshly. “We’ll figure out a way to return you to normal. Da Vinci’s aid or no, we’re going to find the Grail. Since the Grail is basically a magnet for bizarre phenomena, I bet we shouldn’t be too far from it. When Siegfried returns we’ll discuss our next move. Oh, speaking of the devil. You’re quick, Siegfried. Eh?”

Rhys spotted the Saber’s tall figure, carrying a bunch of chopped logs under his arm, from afar. Some tree must have fallen to the brutal blade of Balmung. As he approached, it became clearer that he wasn’t alone. Something big was looming behind him.

Rhys’s first thought was his eyes playing tricks on him. He rubbed his eyes with such haste he saw red for a second. Still, what he saw remained the same, proving that it wasn’t some weird illusion.

“Am I seeing a panda behind Siegfried?” he asked Karna.

The Lancer’s tone implied that he was no less perplexed than Rhys. “Yes, I believe that is a panda we’re seeing.”

It wasn’t just a regular panda, though (seeing a regular panda here was strange enough). It was a panda in human outfit comprised of an oversized brown jacket and khaki pants and wearing a beret and a rucksack on its back. Rhys would be sure he was on drugs (even though he never did drugs) if Karna was not also seeing it.

Had Dr. Romani messed up the coordinates somehow and instead of landing in their destination, the three of them had unknowingly entered Wonderland? Rhys wouldn’t be too surprised now if a white rabbit holding a pocket watch sprung out from nowhere and ran off in a hurry.

“We’re not going to have a panda for dinner if that’s what you intended,” Rhys blurted. “Pandas are endangered species; besides they’re mostly fat—”

“Hey, I’m not following big guy here to be eaten alright.”

A male voice.

Rhys’s eyes swept over Karna and then Siegfried, and finally stopped at their new ‘friend’, staring so hard he might be digging an imaginary hole. “Did it... Did the panda just speak?”

Karna’s eyebrows struggled to not shoot up his forehead and his mouth not quiver when he replied, “It did.”

If a panda’s face were as expressive as a human’s, Rhys imagined it would wear an annoyed expression with eyebrows knitted and mouth pressed. There was something oddly human in the way it stood straight and firm on two hind-legs and crossed its front legs.

Siegfried cleared his throat. “Master, Mr. Shou here is not a panda. He’s a human, and originally looked one until an incident.” A short pause. “I have ground reason to believe his condition is quite similar to Karna’s.”

_To be continued_


	5. Chapter 5

“So,” Rhys drawled, stroking his smooth chin as if he had a beard with one hand while pointing a finger to a pool, “that one turns humans into pandas.” Must have been the one responsible for the panda, no, Mr. Show’s current form. His finger moved to its neighbor. “That one turns humans into what, little piggies?” He winced at the thought. Probably the nasties one of them all. His finger pointed at another pool. “And that one is a dog pool?”

“A chihuahua pool,” Mr. Shou corrected.

OK, worse, Rhys thought, making a mental mark on the location of that pool. If he were ever get a canine form, he’d rather turn into a German shepherd or a husky, not a tiny fur ball with unbearably annoying bark.

“That’s not the worst one,” said Mr. Shou, pointing his paw at a pool in the far east, “that one turns you into a combination of a woman, a boar and a panda.”

Arms crossed in front of his chest, Rhys sent Siegfried a smug look.

_Aren’t you glad I didn’t let you test the waters?_

_Sumanai, Master._

Siegfried cast his eyes down, his shoulders hunched. Karna lightly patted his forearm in consolation.

“And you tested them all?” Karna asked.

“You could say so,” Mr. Shou replied, his tone implying a mild surprise when Karna suddenly spoke to him. “Took me a while, though.”

“How did you test them?” Rhys asked. “You did not dive into each of them, did you?”

He refused to believe someone was crazy or desperate enough to try Gilgamesh’s suggestion.

“I used mice. These pools actually turn every living creature into a certain form but they make no alteration to the mind.”

“So if a mouse is thrown into the woman pool...”

Mr. Shou’s shrug indicated the answer was obvious.

Rhys imagined a woman walking around with a mouse’s mind and shivered at the horror. He couldn’t help an audible groan. Glancing at his Servants, he noticed that Siegfried had paled while Karna’s expression had lost its usual calmness.

“Fortunately there’s also a mouse pool so I could change them back and learned how these pools work.”

The Master and Servants exchanged a quick look of relief.

“That all happened before those slimy monsters made this area their nest and breeding ground. Since I didn’t want to become panda meat, I stopped coming here altogether.”

Those slimy monsters that had been wiped out by Balmung.

“But you came here today?” Rhys said.

“I saw a strange pillar of light in this direction so I thought I should go have a look.”

That must have been when Siegfried unleashed his Noble Phantasm, Rhys thought.

“Then I ran into this big guy in strange costume in the forest.”

“After a little misunderstanding, he decided to go with me, learning that we had cleared the monsters,” Siegfried said. “As I said before, Mr. Shou, your condition and our companion’s may have something in common. He fell into the pool that turned him into female.”

Mr. Shou’s ebony eyes reflected Karna’s image as he studied him with attentiveness. Were he in his human form, he might appear to be contemplating; however, since he looked the way he was now, it was an odd, if somewhat funny, sight to see a panda sitting motionless as though he was debating with himself whether to pick this bamboo or that to consume. Rhys shook the thought away, mentally chastising himself for getting distracted from the issue at hand.

“I see,” Mr. Shou spoke slowly, “so, the woman pool.”

Something sparked in Rhys’s mind. “Mr. Shou, you said when you threw the mice into the mouse pool, they turned back to their original form? If that’s the case then—”

“Do you think I loved being a panda so much I had decided to stay like this if there had been pool to fix it?”

Rhys’s heart dropped. Literally dropped. He could even hear a thud in his ears.

Actually the thudding sound was Siegfried’s heavy Balmung hitting the hard ground.

Rhys didn’t dare to look at his Servants. Once again the great hero of the Mahabharata had been the butt of Fate’s devious joke. “But there has to be a way, right? Neither you nor my friend here can stay like this forever,” he said.

Mr. Shou shook his head and crossed his arms, a very human gesture. His shirt strained against his form. “I’ve been in this form for six months and during that time, I’ve inspected every pool present. All fruitless. But there’s something...”

A light cut through thick darkness. Rhys’s heart was elevated. “Something what?” he asked with haste.

Mr. Shou’s black eyes reflected this strange trio as he studied each of them. “There’s hope,” he corrected, “which wasn’t available to me before but now, with you, it might be possible. Can I ask if you are the ones who defeated those monsters?”

Rhys blinked at the question, certainly not expecting it. “Yes,” he replied. It was basically their job.

Perhaps it was a trick of light but there was a gleam in Mr. Shou’s eyes. His mouth moved, spreading on both sides in what Rhys interpreted as an attempt of a smile. “It’s about to get dark,” he said, “and if you don’t mind, you can come and stay the night at my home. There’re things to discuss, and having a roof above your heads is better than camping outside, isn’t it?”

...

Mr. Shou’s home was a nice cottage nestled amongst the tall bamboo trees. At the first look of Mr. Shou’s cottage and surroundings, Rhys couldn’t help a random thought he had chosen this area to build a home solely because of the abundant food supply. Come to think of it, what did Mr. Shou eat? Had the pool’s magic altered not only his form but also his metabolism so that he mainly digested bamboos now? It was a serious matter of science that demanded an answer.

Rhys’s theory of Mr. Shou’s diet was proven wrong came dinner, when the meal consisted of dumplings, pickles and chicken broth, all home-grown ingredients from his little garden. The man was kind enough to share his food with Rhys’s group even though Rhys was the only one who actually needed to eat; Karna and Siegfried just sat at the bamboo table sipping a minimum portion of broth – quite tasty, mostly to keep up appearance. They had communicated with each other via mental connection between Master and Servants that neither Mr. Shou nor his daughter needed to know they had two Heroic Spirits with the powers to smooth out the entire bamboo forest plus the mountains at their table.

It turned out Mr. Shou was living with a teenage daughter. Around fifteen, Iori, his daughter, was a comely tomboy girl wearing a plaid shirt and jeans coveralls with her chestnut hair cut in a short bob. She was a surprisingly good cook, as the meal they were having was all prepared by her.

She had also displayed a level of composure beyond her age when her father came home with a costume-wearing, weapon-bearing trio, though not without a cool look of suspicion, which vanished after Mr. Shou’s introduction. Having a panda for her daddy probably had prepared her for many sorts of surprises.

“I have a temporary solution for that,” Iori said after hearing the story about how Karna had turned female. She stood up, brushing aside her chair and, and went into the kitchen’s direction. Rhys’s eyes followed her figure, curiosity bubbling in his chest. Was that why Mr. Shou had invited the thee of them to his home? Still, if this girl had a solution, shouldn’t she have helped her father first?

Iori returned shortly after with a kettle in her hand, her footsteps light as a cat’s. She stood behind Karna and all of sudden, poured the content of the kettle on Karna’s head. Having never suspected the teenage girl’s sneaky blow, the great of hero of the Mahabharata received a full kettle of steaming water and was thus soaked the second time in the day.

“What are you doing?” Siegfried barked, his temper showing vividly in his tone. There were few occasions where the calm and mild-tempered Dragon Slayer raised his voice, and this was one of those.

Iori’s expression was free of guilt as she casually replied, “The temporary solution. Just look at him.”

Rhys and Siegfried both turned to Karna, who was quietly wiping the water from his bang and eyes; to remain calm even when he had just had a kettle poured over his head, he must have reached the highest level of Zen.

Two gasps came out simultaneously.

“Ah!”

In front of their eyes was the Heroic Spirit of the lance in his original form. It was as if all his feminine traits had been inexplicably and magically washed away by the water.

“Ah...”

A soft, surprised sound passed Karna’s lips as he saw the drastic changes. To think his condition could be fixed with a method as simple as a kettle of hot water...

It took all Rhys’s will to not jump at Karna and squeeze his lean form in the delight. He was pretty sure the same thought was running in Siegfried’s head. “That’s really good, Karna,” Rhys said, grinning from ear to ear.

“I hate to spoil your mood but don’t get overjoyed too soon. It won’t last long.”

The trio turned to the source of the voice – Mr. Shou but instead of a panda, they found a stout middle-aged man with a shining bald head. His clothes were the same as the panda’s but they were soaked and dripping water to the floor. Beside him stood Iori with the kettle in her right hand.

_To be continued_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A panda dad and a teenage daughter, do they remind you of anyone?


	6. Chapter 6

Rhys squinted his eyes and studied the mess of red and blue lines he had exposed and tried to modify so that the communication device was compatible with his charger. At the moment he was doing the opposite of what he had done a few hours earlier: he was putting the lines back where they belonged, hoping with anxiety bubbling in his chest that he hadn’t screwed up anything and broken the device for good. It was the only thing that connected him and Chaldea; he desperately needed it if the three of them still wanted to return home safe and sound.

Once everything was back in place, Rhys plugged the device in with trembling fingers. He considered it the ultimate blessing that Mr. Shou’s little dwelling had an outlet. Why and how a cottage alone in a bamboo forest had electricity supply was of little importance to him as long as he could charge his communication device. Maybe that was what the windmill-like contraptions in the yard were used for.

The LCD screen flared up together with a beep had Rhys’s heart nearly leap out of his chest. He screamed internally, not wanting to disturb Mr. Shou and Iori’s sleep when they had done him an enormous favor. They each had retired to their room at the back, leaving the full use of the living room to their new and strange guests. They needed the energy for tomorrow’s journey and Rhys would have followed their example if he hadn’t had to do something important first: charging his device and consulting with either Gilgamesh or Davinci, depending on his luck.

Never before had he found the grainy hologram of a certain Davinci-chan so lovely, so endearing. It brightened the small, dimly lit room.

“Never thought I’d say this,” Rhys began, “but so glad to see you, Davinci, instead of Gilgamesh.” A pause. “He’s not there, isn’t he?”

“No, he got into a quarrel with his younger selves and now Enkidu is trying to have them reconcile with each other, or at least not try to kill each other and reduce Chaldea into rubbles in the process.”

“Who had the brilliant idea of putting them in the same breathing space?” Rhys muttered.

“It’s beyond me,” Davinci replied. “Maybe they ran into each other. Good thing we still have Enkidu to get them in line. How are things on your side? I heard from Gilgamesh but I need to see with my own eyes to assess the situation.”

Rhys summoned Karna, who was outside the cottage, guarding it, via their mental connection. Karna’s slender frame instantly materialized beside Rhys, casting a shadow on the young mage’s face. Behind him was Siegfried. “You called, Master?” Karna asked.

“Yes, please come closer so Davinci can have a look.”

Karna wordlessly did as he was told.

Davinci’s hologram put on a monocle. “Hmm, it’s certainly bizarre but also extremely interesting. I’ve never seen anything like this before and I’d love to study it. If only I could Rayshift there myself. Also, what gorgeous figure! I’d love to draw it.”

Rhys scowled. Only a man who had traded his original body for a female one could say this was interesting. “Please keep your perverted side in check, Davinci.”

“You know I can’t help myself when I see beauty.”

Something crossed Rhys’s mind. “Wait, If Gilgamesh had told you then everyone in Chaldea might have already learned of this.”

A chill ran along Rhys’s spine, making him shiver despite the sweltering weather. He dreaded thinking about what if a certain first-rate Archer knew. He had a penchant for overreacting, that one, which was a major understatement.

Davinci pouted. “What did you take the King of Heroes for? A chatterbox? He only told me because it’s my duty to supervise the missions. Now, please tell me if you have checked the other pools and made any discoveries.”

“That sounds a lot like Gilgamesh’s advice. Those are dangerous so no, we didn’t check. Fortunately someone did and we were able to learn the results.”

“Ooh, tell me.” Her voice didn’t contain her skin-crawling gleefulness. It was probably a scientist’s terminal disease: to be curious about everything and eager to explore them despite how perilous they might be.

“Each pool turns the creature that falls in into something else, dogs, cats, pandas, etc., you name it. And provided you managed to find the proper pool, you can turn them back.”

“Hmm, define ‘proper’, please.”

“For example you threw a mouse in some pool and it turns into a cat. If you could find a mouse pool then problem solved.”

“Interesting,” Davinci hummed, stroking her chin. Probably a past habit when she still had a beard. “By that premise, if we find a male pool, Karna will return to normal?”

“Theoretically speaking. One tiny problem: there is no such pool in that area.”

There was a prolonged silence on the other line, which Rhys felt impatient to fill in as not to waste time. He needed rest as much as any normal human and now his eyes began to weigh down.

“There’s a solution to that, albeit temporary,” he said, standing up, not waiting for Davinci’s response. He left for a few seconds and came back with a kettle in hand. “Karna, do you mind?”

Karna shook his head and took the kettle. The palms of his hand glowed red and soon after, there was steam rising from its mouth. With his usual stoicism, he poured the water over himself. For the third time in the day, he got really wet.

OK, that sounds so wrong.

A soft gasping sound passed Davinci’s lips.

The steam cleared and the original Karna appeared. Almost at the same time, Davinci exclaimed, “ _Meravigliosa_! _Subarashii_! Marvelous! This is definitely one of the rare miracles I’ve the chance to witness. Simply marvelous.”

Karna’s face was expressionless while Siegfried’s had soured. “He can only keep this form for a short while,” he said, and Rhys noted the annoyance in his tone. But he couldn’t blame Davinci though; from a scientist’s perspective, this unfortunate incident was a golden chance to study the unknown, and this, this was nothing sort of a miracle.

“When he’s dry, he’s back to being a woman.”

Davinci cleared her throat. “Well, it’s troublesome. Let’s see... “ Rhys heard the sound of keyboard. “It appears in the second Karna turned from woman to man, the magical reading pivoted, meaning a large amount of magical energy was involved. As far as I know, there’s one thing that has that much energy...”

“The Grail!” Both Rhys and Davinci said in unison.

“We speculated as much,” Rhys said. “It seems we came pretty close to it.”

“Any clue on where it is or whose hand it is in so far?”

“Yes, the man we met here provided us a clue, which we will set off to check tomorrow.”

“Now that’s the silver lining,” Davinci chuckled. “Anyway, we will be keeping contact tomorrow. Can your communication device hold up?”

“Probable. I’ll make sure to fully charge it.”

“The best of luck to your team.”

“Thank you.”

“Ah, Rhys, there’s something I need to say before goodbye.”

“Huh?”

Davinci’s voice lowered, as if to confide a secret. “Gilgamesh only told me but I might have discussed with Foxy over lunch, you know, to figure out the cause...”

Rhys’s heart dropped. Foxy. Tamamo no Mae. Chaldea’s unofficial news hub. He was surprised a certain demigod Archer had not barged into the control room with his thunderous temper and his Agni Gandiva activated.

_To be continued_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincerét apology for taking so long to update and thank you all for your patience.


	7. Chapter 7

Perhaps it was the unique way the Chaldean summoning system worked, perhaps it was the leylines on which Chaldea was built, no one really knew but the longer the membership of a Servant at Chaldea extended, the more sensitive to the presences of other Chaldean inhabitants they became. Karna had been summoned for more than a year, and so, his senses had been honed to the point he could accurately tell if the coming individual was a fellow Servant, a staff member, an ally Master or his own. If he had to put it into words, he’d say each individual emitted a distinct ‘aura’ that was invisible to the naked eyes but vivid to the third eye – the spiritual ‘eye’, and Servants, brought to this world and given physical form by magical energy, was keen on that by nature.

For example, the aura manifesting behind his back was an aquamarine flame that was warm and comforting rather than scorching. Like the fire burning low in the fireplace to keep the place from the wintry chill.

A gauntleted hand caressed his cheek and despite the hard and cold exterior, Karna found himself leaning in the touch.

“It has completely dried, hasn’t it?” Siegfried said.

“Ah,” Karna agreed, “in this kind of weather, water vaporizes quickly.”

Even though it was only for a short while, Karna relished in the feeling of being in his true skin again. Being turned into a female might not hamper his battling capability or restraint his movement in any way, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable in that form, and he didn’t think any individual in his shoe could be. It was just unnatural, and he had learned from a young age that going against the natural way of things tended to not have a pleasant outcome. Still, there was nothing he could do to fix this problem aside from waiting patiently for the dawn to come and they could set off on their journey to find a fixed solution. The hot water was merely temporary and he couldn’t, even if he wanted to, have a kettle of water by his side 24/7 ready to empty over his head.

“It’s amusing to think that I’ve gotten wet thrice in the day, one by accident, one by purpose and one by self-inflict.”

Siegfried sniggered. “None of us has seen it coming. The little lady sure has astonishing stealth, perhaps rivals Assassin’s Presence Concealment.”

“What a peculiar situation we’ve found ourselves in.”

“Indeed.”

Siegfried had sat down beside Karna on the wooden steps leading to the small porch. Though the possibility of getting attacked by monsters was relatively low, they still thought it’d be better to keep watch. Naturally, the two Servants, who needed not sleep, had taken on the guarding task.

“Has Master gone to sleep?” asked Karna.

“Yes, he should be sound asleep by now. He was pretty tired though he said nothing of it.”

“Ah.”

With a silent nudge, Siegfried urged Karna to lean on his shoulder. The Indian Heroic Spirit received the message and wordlessly obliged, resting his head on Siegfried’s shoulder, where the armor had been dispersed in order to provide comfort. The winds, which supplied temporary respite from the heat, blew Karna’s spiky yet soft hair. The moon looked as sharp as a well-whetted sickle on the velvety sky. The atmosphere was engulfed in comfortable silence save occasional cries of cicadas. Siegfried smiles contently, stroking a turf of Karna’s hair that was rebelling against the rest. When they were together it was mostly like this: few words were exchanged, just a serene quietness to compensate for a long, arduous day of traveling through time and space battling monsters and whatnots to save an incinerated world that was somehow save-able.

When Siegfried started to think his partner had fallen asleep – Karna had a fondness for sleep, the Lancer suddenly broke the silence. “I was pondering,” Karna said, “what if whatever lies at the mountain top we find tomorrow still cannot revert my condition back to normal.”

During dinner, Mr. Shou had told the group of Master and Servants about the mountain in the far north, where he had been suspected to be the origin of those slimy monsters. However, he had lack the necessary manpower to face whatever made their home in the mountain to investigate. That was where Rhys’s group came in. With the powers of two legendary heroes (though Mr. Shou knew not of this), brawling should not be a matter.

Siegfried opened his mouth, words of reassurance ready to pass from his lips and yet, he swallowed them back, thinking about how shallow they would sound to both of their ears. Despite them being his words, he had not the confidence to imbue them with, thus making them superficial, and Karna was never one to favor substanceless words; he’d see right through them, and be upset by them. Still, Siegfried just knew not what should be said if not words of reassurance. He stayed silent, feeling his skin crawling with anxiety.

Thankfully, Karna, perhaps seeing through his inner turmoil, said, “If it is inevitable, I guess I have no other choice but to accept it. It would take a while, but I think eventually I would learn to live with it, and everyone else would accept it. Eventually.”

When he said “everyone”, his cool eyes focused entirely on Siegfried’s, and the Dragon Slayer suddenly felt the intense heat of the sun beneath the skin of his cheeks.

He didn’t need to think because who needed to think when they spoke the truth, and what he was about to say was nothing sort of the truth, which had always lied in his heart since the very instance he became aware of his affection towards a certain Heroic Spirit.

“I’ve already said it before but I want to say it again,” Siegfried began, intentively studying Karna’s expression as he did. “The first time we crossed weapons, I already knew you were a most worthy opponent. Then, as we’ve been fighting alongside each other, I know you are a loyal ally to whom I can always entrust my back. I’ve come to love you, not as an ally, not as a friend nor mere lovers. I’ve come to love you as much as a soul could love and bond with another...”

Karna’s eyes were as cool as ever, yet in them shone a brilliant light rivaling the northern star. Siegfried could hear the pounding of his heart in his ribcages and the rushing of blood in his veins. This flesh of his was constructed with magic and yet its imitations of a real, living body were impeccable. It was in moments like these that he felt he was living instead of just existing.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, my feelings will not change.”

Unable to stand the intensity of Karna’s gaze any longer, Siegfried acted swiftly, not allowing Karna a chance to properly react. Putting a hand behind Karna’s neck, he leaned in and captured his lips in the only way he knew to prevent Karna from talking, because any words from those soft, pale lips could be the last straw from bursting the dam holding his raging emotions. It felt different from kissing a male Karna and it was only natural, but as the same time it was indescribably familiar. They kissed every night, light, tickling kisses to convey each other’s feelings and wish each other a sound, nightmare-free sleep; but to kiss like to pour their souls into it was quite rare. Siegfried’s mind went back in time to the moment Karna confessed to him as he was trapped between the Lancer’s body and the concrete wall, and the searing kiss they shared afterwards.

Under the moonlight, Karna’s eyes had lost its cool edge and became iridescent while his cheeks flushed and his lips, glistening and plump, parted for short pants. The sharp cleavage below his crimson jewel, made all the more visible due to the rapid rising and falling of his chest, caught Siegfried’s gaze as well as causing the blood to rush to his face. He could imagine all the flowery words spewing from Davinci’s lips if she was able to see Karna now, and was thankful she wasn’t. His chest swelt with a sense of privilege to be the only one to feast his eyes upon such a sight.

Karna peppered the corner of his mouth with butterfly kisses, and Siegfried felt his smiles. This was another privilege he enjoyed, to be able to see Karna smile so frequently and even be the cause in some occasions. To the Heroic Spirit who had spent most of his life granting people’s wishes and making them happy, he was most content to put a smile to face of the person he loved.

“I wonder what chaos is reigning back in Chaldea at the moment,” Siegfried said.

“Probably nothing,” Karna replied, resuming his position of resting his head on Siegfried’s shoulder.

“But it seems Foxy Lady has learnt of the news and once she knows something, so does everyone in Chaldea.”

Karna chuckled. “Not Arjuna. Was he your earlier concern?” he asked.

“Well, your brother does have a penchant for being a tad too dramatic.”

 _When it comes to his brother_ , Siegfried mentally added.

“That’s true. However, Tamamo is quite cautious when Arjuna is involved. That I can assure.”

For some reason, the term ‘brother’ complex, which he had learned from Kiyohime a few months ago, sprang to Siegfried’s mind even though he didn’t quite grasp its meaning.

Together with Kiyohime, Karna was one of the two Servants who were rather close with the Caster, so it was reasonable that he understood her while she was a paradox to many others, Siegfried included.

“Even if he knows,” Karna said, “it’ll be just another day at Chaldea.”

“Right, just another day at Chaldea,” Siegfried echoed, smiling down at the Lancer.

_To be continued_


End file.
